The spectral rigidity of complex projective spaces, revisited (Q1794578)

An \(n\)-dimensional compact Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\) has associated the Hodge-Laplace operator \(\Delta_p:=(dd^*+d^*d)|_{\Omega^p(M)}\) acting on smooth \(p\)-forms of \(M\), for any \(0\leq p\leq n\). There are only a few Riemannian manifolds uniquely determined (up to isometry) by the \(p\)-spectrum \(\text{Spec}_p(M,g)\) of \(\Delta_p\) for some \(p\) fixed or a collection of indexes \(p\). One of the strongest results of this type is in [\textit{S. Tanno}, Tohoku Math. J. (2) 25, 391--403 (1973; Zbl 0266.53033)]: a round sphere of dimension \(\leq 6\) is distinguished by the spectrum of (the Laplace-Beltrami operator) \(\Delta_0\). Let denote by \((\mathbb CP^n,J_0,g_0)\) the complex projective space endowed with the standard complex structure \(J_0\) and the Fubini-Study metric \(g_0\). There are several spectral rigidity results for it among the space of compact Kähler manifolds. The article under review makes a nice summary of them, and indeed corrects some previous mistakes in the literature. The main theorem is the following: for \(n\) and \(p\) positive integers satisfying \(2\leq p\leq 2n-2\) and \(p^2-2np+n(2n-1)/3\neq 0\), one has that any compact Kähler manifold \((M,J,g)\) \(p\)-isospectral to \((\mathbb CP^n,J_0,g_0)\) (i.e.\ \(\text{Spec}_p(M,g)=\text{Spec}_p(\mathbb CP^n,g_0)\)) is necessarily holomorphically isometric to \((\mathbb CP^n,J_0,g_0)\). It is also checked that, for an even integer \(p\geq2\) fixed, the omitted dimensions by the theorem are at most two, and it is equal to zero when \(p=2\) (it was previously not known for \(n=8\)).